Fall 2013 Trip - 3

Hi, It turned out this was going to be the best day, by far, of our trip. We drove from Le Mars following a UP line which also hosts CN from Le Mars to Sioux City.  At Merrill a BNSF line comes in on the west side and parallels the UP into Sioux City.

At Wren a large elevator used these rebuilt SD24s as switching power.  We believe they are former Wisconsin & Southern units.

In Sioux City we found this SW1500/GP38 combination switching the BNSF yard and

this Georgetown Rail Equipment Self Propelled Slot.  The gondolas have no ends so the back hoe at the end of the train can move from car to car while resting on the floors of the cars.

Eventually we worked our way down to the Dakota & Iowa yard where we found a matched set of 4 SD40s and

a GP20 being used as a yard engine.  Here it is spotting stone cars for unloading.

After awhile the SD40s were started up and moved to get on a string of empties.

 We checked with the office here before taking the above photos.  Also we learned that the Hudson to Sioux City local was probably at Chatsworth, IA.  We headed up along the D&I hoping the train would not get around us in the few places we were away from the tracks.

Our first encounter was just south of Chatsworth.  The train moved at about 10-15 MPH so the chase was easy and not all of the locations we photographed at are shown.

This location is between Chatsworth and Akron.

Akron has a large grain elevator.

The corn harvest was underway but the field to the left of the train had not been done yet.  This is between Akron and Westfield.

Westfield had an old style grain elevator that no longer is served by rail.

The Southeast Farmers Elevators Cooperative north of Jefferson, SD had this SW1 built for the C&NW in 1953.

We photographed the local, now running on BNSF trackage rights, at the Southeast Farmers Elevator and

then again in Jefferson.

Our final shots of the local were in North Sioux City, SD crossing the Big Sioux River into Riverside, IA.

The stone train met the local in North Sioux City.  Our first location was on the far north side of town.

We shot it again at Jefferson,

north of Jefferson,

the wye where it diverged from the BNSF in Elk Point, SD, and

arriving at Chatsworth, IA.  There was a detour here so while the train switched here we hurried up to Hawarden, IA and beat the train here with ample time to look around. 

There is a large quarry Hawarden so the train again did switching.  Since it was not possible to photograph the switching moves we continued north.

Our next location was just south of Hudson, SD.  The siding here services some kind of industry that gets tank cars.

Our final photo of the stone train was taken just across the border from Fairview, SD in Iowa.  Thus ended our day.  Thanks for looking.